Monday, March 5, 2012

538 Blog: Calling Oklahoma for Santorum, True Believer

Rick Santorum was in Tulsa yesterday promoting his presidential bid, a move that appears very likely to pay off.

Nate Silver, the Five Thirty Eight election numbers guru at the New York Times, is projecting Santorum with a whopping 91 percent chance of winning Oklahoma.

We don't have any new numbers, but our guess is that Santorum will be the likely winner. He's a professed Super Conservative, after all, and that plays well with Oklahoma's Far Right GOP voters.

Never mind that Santorum's brand of conservatism is anti-birth control, even anti-sex. Never mind that he has denigrated mainstream Christianity. Never mind that he lost his last senate campaign by double digits to a Democrat. Never mind that Sen. Tom Coburn has endorsed Mitt Romney.

None of that matters when you can spout doctrinaire conservative talking points that fire up the base even when they make little sense. That's Rick Santorum, True Believer.